Cutters Have Feelings Too Community Group
Im tired of people classifying people that cut as emo or attentionseekers! Heres a group that we can all be friends and help each other achieve our goals!
I recently found out my 14 year old granddaughter has been cutting. My son is thinks she is doing this for attention. I KNOW BETTER! but I cant get her professional help without his consent. Her mom passed October 2013 from complications due to a suicide attempt. My mom November 2014 and my best friend with whom she was very close to in December 2014. This is a lot for this 50 year old to deal with much less a 14 year old. SM is new to me. I confess I dont understand it but I want to. PLEASE help me to help her. I try to be there for her and just listen but she needs more. How can I support her? Things that worked for you? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. WE CANT LOSE HER TOO!
i don't Self Harm, never have. I found my way here cos i had a young friend that did, and i wanted to understand it better, and be a better friend for my friend. So anything i say here is really only an reflection of my experience of something i never will truly understand. It may not be relevant for you or your granddaughter?
It's a frightening thing to feel so helpless when someone we care about cuts. I can understand your fear of losing her, a truly awful feeling. It helped me when i realised that cutting wasn't a form of suicidal behaviour but rather the opposite - a complex (difficult for non cutters to understand) survival strategy. What i now think is that when the person is having depersonalisation episodes cutting can help them know that are real? When they are numbing down it can help them feel? If they're looping in emotions of hurt or dead or anger and are unable or not allowed to vent then cutting can be a circuit breaker? It seemed to me that the pain could be all these things, and even the sight of the blood was a reassurance. I don't pretend to understand it, i just accepted it and was a little bit reassured myself that suicide didn't seem on the agenda.
one way you could help your granddaughter is if both of aquire a good understanding of wound care health. Access good 1st Aid information somewhere? This may sound counter intuitive but if i were you i'd make sure she has access to clean blades, antiseptic and antibiotic medicines, butterfly bandaids for good wound closure and scar reduction creams like Bio-Oil or Rosa's Scarless Healer etc. Buy them for her, and anything else she needs . Make sure she never runs out. This is not about encouraging / enabling her to cut, it's about accepting that at this time in her life she most likely will and keeping her safe as you can. You could ask her to try not to cut where she is likely to hit arteries?
Be there for her as much as you can. On many many nights i spent hours online with my friend Skype chatting when she was vulnerable looping or numbing down or fighting the need to cut. I kept a folder on my laptop with links to online distractions for her. YouTube vids, maths puzzles, jokes, blogs of things that she had interests in, anything and everything that might distract. It meant that i could always link her a possible distraction at a moments notice. I was careful to rarely intrude, but made sure my Skype was always open and showed me as online and active. This was both on my laptop and my phone. I did this when my gmail Hangouts also. It meant i wad always available if she needed me. I tried to never condemn my friend for cutting, never told her not to or loaded her up with guilt. I simply made myself available, and let her know she was never an intrusion.
these things worked for myself and my friend. I'm sure you can find better and more appropriate ways to help / support your granddaughter, but these might be a place to start for the two of you? I hope you find your way quickly to what works for the both of you
Kevin
i forgot to mention another group here on DS ....
http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Self-Injury/support-group
..... this is a good group full of wonderful people. It can be a little bit scary for people like us that don't Self Harm, but you'll find a lot of support here. Perhaps your granddaughter could become a member, if she hasn't found her way here already. It might help her feel less isolated?
Kevin